Krajna and Lublin Region – Lexical Parallels (on the Basis of Culinary Terms)

Abstract

Krajna, located in northwestern Poland, and Lublin Region, situated in the southeastern part of the country, are those areas that have been perceived and depicted in a plethora of discourses in an entirely different way (and on many levels). Despite the undeniable differences, identifying common features for these regions – e.g., in the context of Polish folk and traditional culture – does not present any serious difficulties. One of the many areas that integrates these territories to some extent are culinary terms. This paper is a comparative lexical and semantic analysis of Krajna and Lublin folk culinary terms, and aims at distinguishing lexical units that are similar in both formal and semantic terms. The object of descriptive analysis is a collection of 55 culinary terms excerpted mainly from lexicographic studies recording the lexical heritage of Krajna and Lublin Region. Krajna lexis, collected e.g., in Słownictwo krajniackie. Słownik gwary wsi Podróżna w Złotowskiem authored byWładysław Brzeziński and Mały słownik gwary krajeńskiej by Jowita Kęcińska-Kaczmarek was compared with the Lublin dialectal lexicon, included in Volume 6 of the Dictionary of Dialects of the Lublin Region by Halina Pelcowa, entitled Pokarmy [Foods]. The research conducted allows to identify three categories within the lexical material gathered: 1) full parallels (fully formally and semantically convergent lexemes) (49.1%); 2) partial parallels (fully formally convergent and partially semantically divergent lexemes) (25.5%); and 3) apparent parallels (fully formally convergent and semantically divergent lexemes) (25.5%).